Cards and vintage things: 1940 Spokane schedule

 I recently picked up a small lot of '30s and '40s matchbook covers. It was pretty cheap and you couldn't see most of the covers, but I noticed what looked like a baseball schedule on the back of one. I was right!

Bill & Harry Ulrich owned a restaurant in Spokane. Bill was also the owner of the city's affiliate in the Western International League, which would explain why there was a Spokane schedule inside. Notice there is no team name - more on that in a bit.

Here is the back with the schedule. There was no date on the matchbook, but this particular slate of teams for the WIL was only in 1940 and 1941, and the dates of the doubleheaders match up with Sundays in 1940.

Looking for a card to pair with the matchbook, I didn't have anything for the two members of the 1940 team who played in the majors (Mike Budnick and Smead Jolley). Two years earlier, when the team was the Spokane Hawks, Bill Rigney, who later had a long career in the MLB as a player and manager, made his pro debut. I paired it with Rigney's '67 Topps card which mentions his 1938 debut, though it doesn't mention the team. There are other Rigney cards which mention Spokane but I don't have them.

For some reason the Hawks changed to the Indians in 1940. I couldn't find a reason why; perhaps they were in the middle of the name change when the matchbook was produced which is perhaps why it just says "Spokane Baseball Schedule" inside. Unlike the Cleveland Baseball Club or Washington Football Club, however, the Spokane Indians, now a Rockies affiliate, has developed a positive affiliation with the Spokane Tribe, which the team website says is a "unique partnership in the world of professional sports". This includes the team's uniforms, which are not in English but in Salish, the native language of the Spokane Tribe.